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Megalithic art studies by M. Gimbutas

• Antithetic snake heads or spirals
Energy symbols, starter or motion and torsion.
• Arcs, multiple
In vertical columns: rising life
• Bi-line
Pregnancy, doubleness, more than one.
• Brush
Energy sign associated with the Goddess in her function of regeneration, often associated with vulva. Interchangeable with wings and ship. Apotropic symbol in the shape of a comb.
• Cairn
A heap or round mound of stones, sometimes of white and shining quartz stones, symbolic either of the egg (regeneration) or of death (the color of the bone).
• Cave
The Goddess's regeneration womb.
• Checkerboard
Symbol of the sphere of water, life water. Alternates with net
• Chevron, double or triple V
See V
• Circle, single or concentric
Engraved on rocks or on standing stones, a transmitter of the concentrated divine energy of the center (cup mark, well, menhir), related to the sacred ring dance.
• Comb
See brush
• Court tomb
A chamber tomb of anthropomorphic shape found in southwest Scotland and northern Ireland, hence the alternative name Clyde-Carlingford tomb. Essential features include an elongated trapeze or triangular shaped cairn with an unrooted semicircular forecourt at the end. The court gives access to the burial chamber proper, which is either a gallery of two or more chambers or is outlined in an anthropomorphic (Goddess's) form. Dates to c. 3500 - 2200 BC.
• Crescent
Energy sign, symbol of becoming, denoting the beginning phase of the lunar cycle.
• Cup mark
A depression in stone filled with the sacred water of the Goddess/Life giver. Source of life and death, related to the divine eye and well.
• Dolmen
A round or rectangular chamber tomb (large table) of early megalithic western Europe. The portal dolmen, a chamber tomb found mainly in Ireland, but also in Wales and Cornwell. The rectangular burial chamber usually becomes narrower and lower towards the rear; it is approached through two tall portal slabs which form a miniature porch or forecourt.
• Egg
Universal symbol of regeneration.
• Eyes
The generative source of the necrotic Owl Goddess, associated with aquatic symbolism (streams, cup marks). Interchangeable with radiating suns, snake coils, and ram horns.
• Gallery grave
A corridor-like or vagina-shaped megalithic tomb, typical of Brittany. Dated to 3000 - 2500 BC.
• Hill
Simulacrum of the pregnant belly of the Earth Mother (Pregnant Goddess).
• Holed stone
Crawling through meant strengthening with the Goddess's energy stored in the stone; renewal, initiation, health.
• Hook, crozier
Energy symbol, serpent force, related to horn and spiral.
• Horn
Energy sign, symbol of becoming, interchangeable with the crescent and hook.
• Hourglass (two triangles joined at tips)
Simplified anthropomorphic shape of the Goddess of Death and Regeneration in her guise as a bird of prey. Bird's claws reveal the identity.
• Hypogeum
A subterranean tomb, most frequently egg-shaped, symbolic of regeneration. The grand tomb of Hal Saflieni in Malta was three stories high with many egg-shaped chambers.
• Knob
See omphalos.
• Labyrinth
Regenerative womb associated with images of the Owl and Fish Goddess.
• Life column
Symbol of life rising from water, cave, or womb in a variety of shapes, portrayed in tombs, temples, and on pottery; watery mass, multiple arcs, vertically winding snake, tree, snake and tree combined, fir tree or fern, phallus, stalagmites and stalactites in caves.
• Lozenge
With a dot, sign of pregnant Goddess, fertility symbol. Two triangles joined at bases, related to triangle symbolism, regeneration.
• M
Sign for water, related to the Egyptian hieroglyph M, Greek mu, and emblem of the Goddess in the life-giving function.
• Meander
Water, angularized water snake; associated with water birds, especially ducks, and the Bird Goddess.
• Megalithic building
A building built of sand or large stones (mega; large, lithis; stone). See court tomb, dolmen, gallery grave, passage grave. Most megalithic structures served as ossuaries and shrines.
• Menhir
A standing stone. Epiphany of the Bird Goddess, Giver of Life and Death (Fate).
• Mound
Pregnant belly of the Earth Mother; akin to hill or oven.
• Net
Source, moisture, water of life or amniotic fluid, pubic hair, wool; associated with fish, lozenge, triangle, egg, and uterine signs and life-giving functions of the Goddess.
• Omphalos
Navel of the Earth Mother, concentrated life-producing power, stone or circular summit of a hill (pregnant belly of pregnant Earth Mother), knob or unevenness on a menhir, umbilical cord or snake on the Goddess's portrayals. Head of the abstract hill-shaped figure of the Goddess in megalithic art.
• Passage grave
The main category of megalithic or chamber tombs: a round mound covering the burial chamber; approached by a narrow entrance passage which is very distinct from the funerary chamber; symbolic of regenerative Goddess's uterus and vagina. Found in Brittany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, northwest Germany, and Sweden. Dated from the 5th to 3rd millennia BC. Large passage graves with engravings (Gavr'inis, Newgrange, Knowth) should be called Tomb Shrines.
• Serpentiform
A winding snake, often 14 - 17 windings denoting the waxing moon, or with 29 - 30 symbolizing the days of the moon cycle.
• Snake
Life force; transfunctional symbol; coil, cosmic life source, with a meaning similar to the divine eye, sun energy, and full moon. Horizontally winding (see serpentiform, upward winding (see life column).
• Spiral
Energy symbol, serpent force, symbolic abstraction of the dynamic snake.
• Stone
The Goddess's power.
• Stream
The Goddess's life- and health-giving water (see well and rain water bringing abundance.
• Sun
Symbol of seasonal renewal associated with the Goddess of Death and Regeneration. Interchangeable with the Goddess's eyes, snake coil, and ram horn coils.
• Thomb
The Goddess's regenerative womb. (see hypogeum, megalithic grave).
• Triangle
Regenerative womb of the Goddess, the earliest of all known symbols (evidence in the Paleolithic).
• Tri-line, number three
Totality, abundance, triple source, triple spring: associated with birth/life-giving functions of the Goddess.
• Umbilical cord or unevenness on stone projections
Serpentine connection between mother and new life. Appears on the Goddess's images in the aspect of death and regeneration, most frequently on the Owl Goddess.
• V
The Bird Goddess's emblem from Upper Paleolithic times, derived from a triangle (i.e. pubic triangle, vulva). A main sign in the sacred script of Old Europe.
• Vulva
External female genitalia as the concentrated life-producing part of the Goddess in her birth-giving functions. Also a generic term for all vulva shapes: oval, seed or lens, and triangle. Pars pro toto of the Goddess encountered on rocks from the Upper Paleolithic.
• Wavy lines
Water, stream.
• Well
A source of life owned by the Life-giving Goddess (fate). Concentrated life power under a stone (menhir), usually surrounded by a stone circle or ditch.
• Whirl
Four-corner sign and cross. Energy signs, usually associated with the life column or rising Goddess of Regeneration, serving as stimulators.
• X
Four-corner sign and the emblem (cross bands) of the Bird Goddess. On seals and figurines associated with the chevron. Framed: interchangeable with the hourglass and the butterfly.

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